


Messing with my Head

by dyingpoet



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slurs, just guys being dudes with their mouths yknow???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 14:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Johnny and Dallas get stranded in their car in the middle of nowhere during a thunderstorm. They get bored, things happen.





	Messing with my Head

**Author's Note:**

> adkjfsd so just fuck my actual prompt list right?? just write a couple guys?? bein dudes?? i guess??

Thunderstorms had been predicted all day, and the weather forecast had warned everyone in the area to stay inside until the next morning. Dallas didn’t believe in weather forecasts.

Steve had also said that Dallas’ car didn’t sound too good, and that he shouldn’t drive anywhere too far until he and Soda had the chance to look it over at work the next day. Dallas didn’t believe in mechanics.

So, Johnny was in the passenger seat of Dallas’ car, watching him get down poured on while he squinted under the hood of his busted out car, trying to figure out why it wouldn’t start. They were in the middle of nowhere, and it was nearly midnight. 

If Johnny were a lot braver he would have said, “I told you so.”

But he wasn’t, so when Dallas whipped open the door to the car and collapsed in his seat, dripping water everywhere and spraying Johnny with it when he slammed the door shut. Johnny didn’t say a word.

“Shut up.”

“Didn’t say anything, Dal.”

Dallas shook a hand through his sopping hair and glared weakly at Johnny. “I know what you’re thinkin’, and shut it. Don’t wanna hear it right now.”

Johnny shrugged, and bit his lip to keep from smirking as Dallas wrung out his t-shirt onto his pants. If he was Catholic he would’ve been struck down to hell for the amount he was cursing. Johnny thought the whole thing was hilarious. 

“Shit,” Dallas growled, slamming his palm into the steering wheel before looking over at Johnny. “I dunno why you look so happy, kid. We’re stuck out here until the rain stops.”

Johnny shrugged and put his feet up on the dash, something he was only comfortable doing in Dallas’ car. “Ain’t got much at home that’s better than this.”

Dallas got quiet and Johnny kicked himself for hitting a nerve there. Dallas only ever got angry when Johnny mentioned anything about his life at home, and the hours they were stuck were gonna pass a whole lot slower if Dallas was brooding in the driver’s seat. 

He cleared his throat and turned to look at Dallas cautiously. “You cold?”

Dallas crossed his arms and looked straight forward, more like a little kid than either of them would admit. “Nah.”

Johnny didn’t realize he was staring at Dallas, trying to tell if he was shivering or if his eyes were playing tricks on him, until Dallas raised his eyebrows and looked him dead in the eye. “Grab a camera why don’t’cha.”

Stuttering, Johnny felt his face start to heat up and Dallas gave an honest to god grin. “Just messin’ with ya, gotta pass the time somehow.”

“Can’t ya find a better way than that?” Johnny shot back, still embarrassed and getting more so when Dallas gave him a look that screamed surprise. “What?”

Shrugging, Dallas stripped off his soaked jacket and tossed it in the backseat. “Nothin’, just haven’t hear ya talk that loud in a while.”

“I can talk loud,” Johnny said with a frown. He only ever got this comfortable in front of Dallas and sometimes Pony, and the other boy knew it from the way he was egging Johnny on. “Y’all don’t give me nothin’ to talk loud about, s’all.”

Dallas shrugged again and looked out the window. “Whatever you say, Johnny.”

To avoid staring at Dallas again, Johnny looked out into the rain, sinking down in the seat so that his shoulder blades were almost at the base and his sneakers were pressed up against the windshield. 

If he was being totally honest with himself, he liked and hated being stuck in the care with Dallas. Liked because he  _ liked  _ Dallas. Hated because of the  _ way  _ he liked Dallas. A year or so back he’d gotten so messed up about the way he liked Dallas that he avoided him for a solid month or so. That ended when Dallas cornered him in the lot one night, more angry and panicked than Johnny had ever seen him.

Johnny hated seeing him like that, so he didn’t avoid him anymore. But he was still messed up about it. 

“You were right.”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Johnny frowned at Dallas. “Huh?”

“You were right,” Dallas said, and he started to strip off his shirt. “I’m freezin’, gonna get sick before the rain stops at this rate.”

“I think you’d be colder like that,” Johnny said, trying to keep his voice steady as he nodded at the half naked Dallas. 

Dallas just shook his head and kicked off his shoes and socks with it. “Nah, the wet is what makes ya sick, I’ll live like this.”

Johnny just shrugged and started picking at his nails. He could physically feel the boredom start to radiate off Dallas, and he took pride in being one of the few people Dallas got almost childishly bored in front of. It was funny letting him stew in it for a while until he broke.

“Johnny.”

Johnny’s lips upturned a little as he hummed in response, still not looking up from his hands.

“ _ Johnny _ .”

Johnny knew that Dallas knew exactly what he was doing by staying quiet, and he probably should have expected to find himself pulled across the seat and into a loose headlock a second later. He yelped anyway.

“Hey, lay off, man,” Johnny bit out, pushing halfheartedly at Dallas’ arms and hearing him chuckle from above Johnny’s head. “This ain’t fair play.”

Dallas ground his knuckles into Johnny’s hair, ungreased from the times he spent running to and from the car in the rain, and ignored Johnny’s growl. “‘Course it is, teachin’ ya to respect your elders and all.”

He finally let Johnny go once the younger stopped struggling in favor of just whining and pulling at Dallas’ grip.

“Weakass.”

Johnny crawled back to the passenger side, turning his back so that it was pressed against the door and pulling his knees up to his chest. “You surprised me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You did,” Johnny said, sticking his chin out a little as he ran his hands through his now tousled hair. “I wasn’t ready.”

“Oh?” Dallas asked with a lilt, and he turned so that he was facing Johnny straight on, sitting on his knees against the driver’s side door. “So if it was a fair fight, you would’a taken me?”

Johnny normally would have backed down right then and there, but he and Dallas were alone, and he felt a giddiness bubble up in his chest. So he sat up on his knees and leaned forward. “Hell yeah.”

“Okay, on three then.”

Johnny nodded. “On three.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

Dallas lunged forward as soon as the word left his mouth, and Johnny moved to the side, grappling at Dallas’ back as he got both arms around Johnny’s chest and started pulling him down.

“Scratchin’ me like a damn cat,” Dallas laughed once Johnny was flat on his back. “ _ That _ don’t seem like fair play.”

Johnny drew his knees up to his chest and shoved at Dallas with them, squeaking a bit when the other put his full weight on them and forced them down. “Tough.”

Grinning, Dallas sat on Johnny’s legs, grappling for a second to get a hold of his hands. “Lost awful quick.”

“I ain’t lost nothin’,” Johnny snarked, although he had to admit once Dallas got his hands under his knees there wasn’t really any chance he was going anywhere. “You only lose if ya tap out or holler uncle.”

Dallas barked out a laugh. “Really, so you don’t think ya lost yet?”

Johnny didn’t answer, choosing instead to dig his heels into the seat and pull at his trapped arms. It wasn’t really getting him anywhere.

“I think this is the part where ya holler uncle.”

Johnny huffed and looked up at Dallas, setting his jaw and raising his eyebrows in challenge. “Well I ain’t.”

Whistling, Dallas stretched out his arms and yawned exaggeratedly. “Guess I’ll have to sit here ‘til ya do. I can sleep like this, y’know.”

“So can I,” Johnny shot back, ignoring the way his legs were starting to fall asleep. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”

“Neither am I.”

They said in a tense, playful silence for a minute or so before Johnny tried to get some sense of surprise.

“Ouch!”

As soon as Johnny yelled, Dallas backed off, concerned and Johnny used that to spring up and back, away from Dallas. He was grinning like an idiot, and once Dallas caught on he gaped at him before smirking.

“You little shit.”

Johnny’s eyes went wide as Dallas pounced at him, both of them going down and laughing as they did, hitting the doors and the dash and almost falling off the seat as they struggled for the upper hand.

Rearing up quickly, Johnny’s head smacked right into Dallas’, and they both groaned a bit and fell back. Well, Johnny fell back, Dallas fell forward pretty much onto Johnny.

Their legs and arms were sort of tangled together, and Johnny was trying to free his hand from under Dallas’ chest when he looked up and saw Dallas looking at him from not four inches from his face. He had stilled.

“Dal?”

Dallas’ head tilted and moved down, his lips on Johnny’s own and before Johnny could really process what was happening his body made a few decisions for him and he was kissing back. Not that he really knew what to do, but Dallas sure did, and after following his lead for a bit, they both pulled back.

Johnny’s head fell back against the seat, his breathing a bit labored because what the  _ hell _ .

“Shit,” Dallas breathed, looking at Johnny with something akin to fear but not quite. “Shit, I-uh, that wasn’t really right, for us to do, right?”

His eyes were searching Johnny’s frantically, and Johnny, without missing a beat, said, “I think it was okay.”

At Dallas’ continued silence, Johnny bit his lip and fought through the panic and the pounding in his chest. “Ain’t nobody here, right? Who’s gonna say shit?”

Dallas looked conflicted for another moment. “I mean, yeah. Neither of us are, y’know-”

“‘Course not,” Johnny said, figuring he was probably only half lying. Dallas had been with girls, and Johnny had been with a girl once. Neither of them were totally queers, if that meant anything. Johnny didn’t think it did. 

Dallas must have been thinking the same thing, because he leaned down again, slower and more unsure than before, but he kissed Johnny again, and Johnny kissed back, and no one was there to see it.

Thunder shook the air inside the car, and dammit to hell, neither of them gave enough of a shit about god and all that bullshit to pretend like they cared. 

* * *

 

Johnny woke up with a mumbling in his ear. Opening his eyes, he squinted, holding a hand up to block out the sunlight and turning his head to the side. Dallas was saying something soft and completely incoherent in his sleep. Johnny didn’t want to wake him, so he didn’t move. 

Not that he could have if he wanted to though. After well, the night before, they’d ended up sort of tangled up together, and while they were sleeping Dallas had ended up with both arms around Johnny, pulling their chests together while their legs lay knotted at the other end. It was strangely comfortable.

And as Johnny laid there, blinking sleep out of his eyes and waiting for Dallas to wake up, he tried not to think about what would happen when Dallas did wake up. It could be bad, really bad. Bad things happened to guys for messing around like that, and while Johnny knew Dallas wouldn’t lay a hand on him, if he turned cold on him that would feel worse.

A wave of anxiety had started to take over when he felt Dallas’ chest shudder with a yawn, and he turned to see him squint his own eyes open. 

And he looked at Johnny. And Johnny looked back at him, imagining a thousand different ways this could go wrong when Dallas grinned just slightly and sat up, uncurling himself from Johnny and stretching out his arms. 

“Didn’t mind that.”

Johnny felt a physical weight lift off of his chest, and he struggled to say something. “Me neither.”

“And don’t nobody gotta know about it, even if it happens again, right?”

“Right.”

Dallas nodded, and the two of them moved back to their own seats, Dallas reaching to grab his slightly drier shirt from the backseat, and Johnny stretching out cautiously.

Figuring now was a better time than ever to take a risk, Johnny gave Dallas a sidelong glance. “Ya think it’s gonna happen again?”

Dallas gave him a light shove to the head. “Maybe, let’s go find a phone and call up the grease monkeys.”

He brushed it off quick but Johnny caught the brief bit of lightness in that first word, and had to fight to keep the smile off his face as they both got out of the car and started walking back the way they came, a good half mile from the nearest payphone. 

“Quit grinnin’ like that.”

“I ain’t grinnin’.”

“Shut up.”

Johnny definitely kept grinning the whole walk. Dallas didn’t say anything else about it. 

**Author's Note:**

> ayyy i Love This Fandom And These Boys soso much,,, like goddamn :^)
> 
> kudos/comments are the only thing fueling me so like,, please im begging (also follow me on tumblr to send prompts or just chat- @dying-poet)


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